Comments on: Congress’ “emergency” spending is out of controlhttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/
Mon, 13 Oct 2014 04:50:29 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.3By: jimmyjihadhttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-349
Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:44:53 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-349Only when those employed by the government are denied the right to vote, will this situation change.

Only those who support the government in the private sector should have a say in how their tax dollars get spent.

Remember it’s “We the People” not “We the People on the governments teat”.

]]>By: gaulimaulihttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-346
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:34:40 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-346Apres moi le deluge is probably the motto for this congress and administration.How else can they look at themselves in the mirror. This is going to end badly, sooner or later.Among heads of state,only Angela Merkel seems to be aware of the coming trainwreck, judging by how ashen-faced she appears as of late. And all the parasites of society keep marching and/or protesting. And yes, that goe for the fatcats as well. Look at TV , read your paper-everything is “local”, hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing, all keeping their heads in the sand. Nice weekend to all, anyway.
]]>By: doctorjay317http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-345
Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:25:31 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-3453 things I want to say.

1)All politicians are liars. We should know by now.
2)You cannot stop a 2-ton truck charging down the slope.
3)Would storyburn be the first of the 20%?

]]>By: STORBURNcom11http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-344
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:00:13 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-344America cannot support the 310 million people that live here in the US. 20% of them need to find another country. We just launched a Facebook competitor, http://storyburn.com.
]]>By: reconstructionshttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-343
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:19:26 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-343The emergency which is going to put an end to this federal borrowing is a rise in yields on government debt like the ones we have seen in the weaker European economies. Although tarring the Congress for not living within our means will probably serve anti-incumbents well and makes for good reading, it is disingenuous to believe there is a real alternative.

You only need to look at Europe to see what will happen to your economy in the present climate if you make deep cuts in stepping aside as every bank and American went money like they did in the depression, or print money through borrowing to try to get through it. So of course they chose the course which would put off the crisis as long as possible. If you look at European bond yields vs. Treasuries it is apparent that this was “successful” in the short term.

The choices we could have made to ensure the coming crisis would not occur are far behind us. We could have stayed on the gold standard instead of piling on debt for decades, but only by avoiding entanglement in Vietnam. We could have decided not to spend half of all our wealth on military hardware and personnel. We could have adjusted Social Security and Medicare benefits so that the amount paid in matched the amount paid out. We could have passed laws preventing the government from borrowing from these social programs for other budgetary expenditures. And we could have regulated banks so that they were not allowed to make trillions in loans that people couldn’t pay back and that eventually had to be federalized to avoid the loss of every American’s savings in bank deposits and stocks.

Because Americans and the press failed to recognize and deal with these threats while they were still manageable, it is too late. Not fighting the wars and maintaining such a large military, by itself, might have avoided the current crisis, if we had taken a different path 40 years ago as Dwight Eisenhower suggested. But we can’t unborrow this money now. Our choices are borrow and spend until the markets cut the US off, which will inevitably happen, or cut spending and enter a deflationary spiral which destroys the wealth of every American.

Pretending we have a choice fails to recognize the reality of the situation. Not recognizing the reality of our situation, particularly in the press, has been the hallmark of every recent crisis, including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Dot-Com, Housing, etc., etc.. The very life of our democracy depends on the effectiveness and clarity of our press and our citizen’s ability to understand our choices.

]]>By: Nomorekoolaidhttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-342
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:07:39 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-342good to see someone telling the truth and no kool aid
]]>By: DavidS95http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-341
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:49:06 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-341Gregg, another strong article. My question is how do we get congress to act? The two parties have been ineffective and I have mixed views on the tea-party candidates.
]]>By: Death2Communismhttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-339
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:54:04 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-339Murfster has it right – bring back the manufacturing jobs and quit importing all the Chinese goods. The USA needs to get back to taking care of our own! My viewpoint might be isolationist, but why should we have to sacrifice our standard of living to bring up the rest of the world’s standard of living? I would gladly pay more for my tennis shoes, as long as we start making the rest of the world pay more for our grain! Lose the dependency on foreign oil and kick out the crooks in power! Perhaps a second American Revolution is in order.
]]>By: gitagriphttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-338
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:40:38 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-338follow-up…… GREGG for PRESIDENT!!!
]]>By: gitagriphttp://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/2010/06/10/congress-emergency-spending-is-out-of-control/#comment-337
Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:39:02 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/gregg-easterbrook/?p=130#comment-337Gregg – your column here is the BEST and most ACCURATE reporting ever published by a media outlet. You are absolutely right — “LYING is the precise word”. The debt burden has moved massive tax payer dollars from health, security and education to interest payments on national debt, and it has nothing to do with political stripe. And whats driving this?? The moral, ethical and even criminal behavior of politicians who will do anything to stay elected because they cant get enough of the drug called “power”. Until politicians are held ACCOUNTABLE we are heading for a real economic disaster of epic proportion. Good work Gregg – get this article on Reuters home page!!
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